This photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a juvenile California condor, identified as No. 428, wearing a GPS transmitter while perched at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Maricopa, Calif. (Angela Woodside/Joseph Brandt/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)

A captive breeding program that at one time included every living California condor has passed a key milestone in helping North America's largest bird return to the wild.

For the first time in decades, more condors hatched and fledged in the wild last year than adult wild condors died, officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Fourteen young condors took flight compared with 12 that died. Officials say it's a small difference but a big step since the last 22 wild condors were captured in the 1980s to start the breeding program that releases offspring into the wild.

"That's an indication that the program is succeeding," said Eric Davis, the Wildlife Service's coordinator for the California condor program. "We hope that wild birds start producing wild chicks, and that is what is happening more and more."

In 2011, California condors in the wild for the first time outnumbered condors in captivity since the start of the breeding program. The wild population has since grown to 268 wild condors, with 167 in captivity.

Officials also counted 27 wild condor nests last year. Nineteen were in California, three in the Arizona-Utah border area and five in Mexico's Baja Peninsula. Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona has a condor nest, officials said, as do Zion National Park in Utah and Pinnacles National Park in central California.

The captive breeding program continues with the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey near Boise, Idaho, being the top egg producer, with six eggs laid this spring and nine more expected.

She said two eggs laid at the facility last year were placed in wild nests in California where eggs were either infertile or damaged. The replacement eggs produced fledglings that officials count in the wild population.

One reason that I can think of is that it's probably better for the birds because they wouldn't rely on humans for their cleaning, eating, and drinking that's why I think they're doing it.

The second reason is that they're trying to make the species native to the Calafornia desert again because they were in captivity for a while and could have lost their survival skill for the time they had spent in captivity.

My last reason is that they have more of their nest and birds out which can make a mini pack of birds which can let them defend themselves.

TaylorSeifert-Ste

3/05/2016 - 10:00 p.m.

For some reason, the fact the condors can live to be 60 years old surprised me. It's great to hear that there are now more condors in the wild than in captivity and that more condor births were recorded than deaths. Hopefully the success of the condor population continues.

ShawnaWeiser-Ste

3/07/2016 - 02:45 p.m.

I think its great that we are worrying so much about keeping wildlife alive. I just hope that the numbers keep increasing instead of decreasing due to deaths.

kaylynm1-col

3/07/2016 - 06:52 p.m.

They are doing this because condors are endangered in the wild.

noahi-fel

3/30/2016 - 02:30 p.m.

So they can live in their real homes and develop their survival capabilities